John 'Sarge' Resetar, 70, returned to job days after being stabbed in the chest

John Resetar owned and operated convenience stores, gas stations and car washes for 40 years before being bought-out by corporate America. Nine years ago, he opted for a career change and applied for a job with Victory Security working as a guard at Franklin Regional High School. Two years after that, he switched companies to Capital Asset Protection but stayed at FRHS. His defining moment, like for so many others, came April 9.

Resetar, 70, or "Sarge" as he was known to students and teachers at the high school, was just beginning his day that Wednesday when he and Murrysville Police's school resource officer, Buzz Yakshe, realized something was wrong.

Yakshe ran toward the nurse's office, and Resetar ran toward the cafeteria as the fire alarm sounded in between the screams.

"As I was running down, people were running toward me. I was telling everyone, 'Get out of the building! Get out of the building!' Because at that point in time, I thought it was something to do with a fire," Resetar said."As I approached the entrance to the cafeteria, I saw a great amount of blood on the floor."

Resetar said he looked inside the cafeteria but the blood hadn't continued inside. "As I turned back, I saw two people coming down the hallway toward me. At that point, I didn't recognize who they were, I was just telling them to turn around and get out of the building," he said.

"I turned to start to go down that way when I realized Alex (Hribal) was standing right in front of me. He evidently was one of the ones who was coming down that hallway when I told him to get out. I could see the knife starting and I felt it going in. I fell back against the wall," Resetar said. "He stabbed me right here, right under the heart. It just missed my heart and my lung."

Sophomore Alex Hribal, 16, had a kitchen knife in each hand, Resetar said. By that point, police said he had stabbed 20 of his classmates. Resetar was the final victim.

"I was down against the floor, I had fallen down on the floor, and the next thing I knew, he was coming at me again. That's when Sam King, who must have been that other person at that time, coming down the hall who I didn't recognize, tackled him," Resetar said. "Sam had him down, but I was afraid he wouldn't be able to hold him, so I jumped up and had a hold on each of his hands, controlling the knives."

King is the assistant principal credited with tackling Hribal and stopping the attack. While he was on the ground with Hribal, Resetar said he jumped on top of Hribal's lower body and grabbed Hribal's wrists. At that point, he said assistant principal Joan Mellon came down the hallway to grab the weapons. Resetar recalled Hribal's "incredible strength."

"There was the three of us struggling with him and Joan Mellon finally got the knife away from him and threw it down the hallway away from us. The other knife was in such a position that she couldn't get to his hands without getting cut. When she got the one knife off, it freed my other hand up. The only thing I could think of doing at that time was punching him three times, and he dropped the knife," Resetar said. "During, when I had his hands, I was just praying I wouldn't pass out until we got the knives away from him."

Exactly what was said during those intense moments is still unclear to Resetar, as Mellon's yelling for Hribal to drop the knives drowned out anything Hribal might have said. However, he remembers the first words he heard Hribal speak. "The only thing I heard at the beginning, when we first got him down, he said, 'Where's the police officer? I want to die, I want to die, I want to die,'" Resetar said.

After that, Resetar said Yakshe arrived to handcuff Hribal and a maintenance worker arrived to help Resetar's wound. Then, Murrysville Police Chief Thomas Seefeld arrived at the scene and helped get Resetar medical attention. Resetar was airlifted to UPMC Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh where he said doctors opted to let the wound heal on its own since no organs were hit. He returned to work Monday, April 14, a work day he said he was not yet paid for.

"I got so many hugs," Resetar said. "The amount of parents that came up to me, it was just unbelievable at that time," Resetar said.

Resetar was hailed as a hero by the media, police, school officials, victims and students for his actions that day that led to the end of the attacks. His story is unchanged and corroborated by everyone involved.

Last week, he was winding down his summer vacation, preparing to begin his 10th year as a security guard with Franklin Regional when he said the doorbell rang at breakfast Tuesday. His wife met the postal carrier at their front door. "She brought the letter in and I opened it and found out I was no longer needed," Resetar said.

The letter, signed by Jeffrey Dahlke, regional security operations manager for Capital Asset Protection Inc., Resetar's employer, stated Resetar would no longer be employed with the company. Dahlke cited a recent meeting with Franklin Regional administration.

"Pretty hurt really. Anybody can hire or fire anybody they want. The thing that got me was they didn't even have the common courtesy to call me in and talk to me or call me. I get it through a letter," Resetar said. "I want to know who was involved in making the decision."

Assistant superintendent Mary Catherine Reljac confirmed district officials met with Capital Asset Protection, with whom they have a contract to provide security for the district, in the fall of 2013 to discuss improvements and changes in school protection. She said those meetings continued throughout the school year and after the stabbings.

"We did look at what we wanted for this school year. We met with Capital Asset Protection about what we wanted, the kinds of duties we wanted their security guards to perform at our schools, as well as how we wanted them to structure their days," Reljac said.

Reljac said they told CAP they want their guards to build relationships with students, patrol other buildings on campus, be visible in the buildings, organize security for district-sponsored events and perform other tasks that she did not want to disclose because of security reasons. Reljac said at no point did they tell CAP to fire Resetar. Instead, she said it is up to Capital Asset, Resetar's employer, to determine if he met the district's requests.

"Our needs as a school district are to fulfill the requirements we need in our guards, and that's really it. It's up to Capital Asset Protection to determine how best to do that," Reljac said. "We just wanted to be sure to outline our needs as a school district, and then Capital Asset Protection does their best to meet those needs."

Reljac said as of Monday afternoon, no one at Franklin Regional received a copy of Dahlke's letter to Resetar, even though the district is mentioned several times in the letter.

"From what I've seen, it reads as though that letter came from us. That's frustrating for us as a district because we would really like to know what is going on so we can better respond to it," Reljac said. "I can tell you we were surprised as a district. We were unaware that his employment had ended there."

Further, Reljac said administration is disappointed in the way Resetar's firing was handled.

"I can say we really try to do our best to value the people that work here, as well as our community, and to be able to have conversations with them. If he didn't have a conversation with his employer, we really are disappointed at that because that isn't how we would want to handle that as a school district," Reljac said. "We have had a conversation with Capital Asset Protection about the information that's been out there, as well as our disappointment with not knowing more information."

Pittsburgh's Action News 4 Reporter Ashlie Hardway left messages for Capital Asset Protection Inc.'s president and his secretary, but those calls were not returned.

"I never got a chance to actually talk to somebody about what was wrong or what we could do," Resetar said. "I got up at the same time this morning, and I got up like I was going to school. The clock in my brain went off at that time."

Resetar has retained Adamsburg attorney Tim Dawson, who said he plans to begin filing paperwork for a federal lawsuit this week. When asked if Resetar felt his age or his history of speaking up to district officials played a role in his firing, he said he believed so.

Reljac said she had no information if either of those factors played a role in the decision as Capital Asset management were the only people to make that decision. As far as the current security situation at Franklin Regional High School, Reljac said the district added an additional security officer to campus for this school year. She said one guard has a Bachelor of Science in Homeland and International Security as well as four years experience in the U.S. Marine Corps, which included two tours of duty in Afghanistan. He also worked for the federal government. A second guard has several years experience contracting with various law enforcement agencies. He also provided event and corporate security, Reljac said.

Reljac also said the school board approved nearly $250,000 in March for improvements to school security. In addition to the extra guard, Reljac said they have upgraded the door locking systems and other security measures which she declined to elaborate on citing security reasons. "I think our school is safer each and every day than it was before. Security isn't something that a school district does once. It isn't something one does annually," Reljac said.

Resetar was the second person involved in the April 9 attack to leave the district. Yakshe, 62, retired from the Murrysville Police Department May 7 after 20 years with the department, 10 of which were spent as school resource officer. Yakshe, Seefeld and district administration previously declined to comment on his retirement.

Resetar said he is looking for another job.

"I'm going to miss a lot of the kids and a lot of the teachers. They were very, very, very good to me. That's the hard part," Resetar said.

FAMILY, BUT McNERNEY'S MOTHER SAYS SHE DOES NOT FEEL LIKE SHE CAN FORGIVE THEM. YOU'LL HEAR FROM HER TONIGHT AT 5:30. A MASS STABBING ATTACK FIVE MONTHS AGO, TODAY STUDENTS RETURN TO START A NEW SCHOOL YEAR. 20 STUDENTS AND A SECURITY GUARD WERE INJURED IN THAT APRIL 9th ATTACK AND THAT SECURITY GUARD WILL NOT BE BACK AT SCHOOL THIS YEAR. OUR NEWSROOM HAS LEARNED HE HAS BEEN LET GO. TONIGHT, HE IS SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THAT DECISION. HE TELLS PITTSBURGH ACTION Y HE WAS SURPRISED TO LEARN HE WOULD NO LONGER BE WORKING AT FRANKLIN REGIONAL. THEY STABBED ME RIGHT HERE RIGHT UNDER THE HEART. MISSED MY HEART AND MY LUNG. Reporter: JOHN, OR SARGE TURNED SCHOOL SECURITY GUARD FOR THE PAST NINE YEARS. ON APRIL 9th, HE AND VICE PRINCIPAL SAM KING WERE INSTRUMENTAL FROM STOPPING ALEX HRIBAL FROM HURTING MORE PEOPLE. I WAS AFRAID HE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HOLD HIM, SO I JUMPED BACK AND HAD ONE HAND ON EACH OF HIS HANDS CONTROLLING THE KNIVES. Reporter: NOT BEFORE HRIBAL STABBED HIM, MISSING HIS HEART AND LUNG THAT WEDNESDAY. THE NEXT MONDA. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. Reporter: THIS PAST TUESDAY WITH LESS THAN A WEEK UNTIL WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN HIS TENTH YEAR AT FRANKLIN REGIONAL, THE DOORBELL RANG. HIS WIFE PICKED UP THE CERTIFIED LETTER. BROUGHT THE LETTER IN, I OPENED IT AND FOUND OUT I WAS NO LONGER NEEDED. Reporter: THE LETTER FROM HIS EMPLOYER, WHO PROVIDES THE CONTRACTED SECURITY FOR FRANKLIN REGIONAL, EXPLAINED MANAGEMENT MET WITH THE DISTRICT AND BASED ON THAT MEETING, HE WAS BEING LET GO, BOTH FROM FRANKLIN REGI CAP ALTOGETHER. I CAN TELL YOU WE WERE UNAWARE HIS EMPLOYMENT HAD ENDED THERE. Reporter: OFFICIALS ADMIT THEY HAD A CONVERSATION ABOUT REDEFINING SECURITY ROLES BUT NEVER ASKED FOR HIM TO BE LET GO. THAT, THEY SAID, WOULD BE UP TO CAPITAL ASSET. C.A.P.'s PRESIDENT DIDN'T RETURN MY CALLS BY DEADLINE. IF HE DID NOT HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH HIS EMPLOYER, WE REALLY ARE DISAPPOINTED AT THAT, BECAUSE THAT ISN'T HOW WE WOULD THAT AS A SCHOOL DISTRICT. I'M GOING TO MISS A LOT OF THE KIDS AND TEACHERS. THEY WERE VERY, VERY, VERY GOOD TO ME, AND THAT'S THE HARD PART. Repor YOU HEARD HIM SPEAK A LITTLE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED THAT DAY IN THE HALLWAYS. COMING UP ON PITTSBURGH ACTION AT 6:00, WE HEAR MORE OF HIS STORY, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED INSIDE THE HALLWAYS THAT DAY, FROM THE MAN WHO WITNESSED IT.

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